The history of Bath Lodge Castle
Originally constructed in 1806 as the principal of six gate lodges to one of the largest estates in England, Bath Lodge Castle (originally called Castle Lodge) was uniquely built to parody, in miniature, the principal estate buildings of Farleigh Manor and Farleigh Castle.
Fernleah, the land that the Estate lies on, was mentioned as long ago as 987 AD in a charter of King Elthelred. At the time of the Domesday Book it was known as Ferlege and was held by Almar of the great Baron Roger de Courseulles. By the 12th century it had become Farleigh and was owned by the Montfort Family who sold it to the Burghershs in 1337. The estate then passed on to Sir Thomas Hungerford who was speaker of the House of Commons in 1370. Sir Thomas failed to get the necessary Royal consent for fortification of the original Manor House but was pardoned in 1383.
The Hungerfords fared badly too. Two members of the family backed the wrong side of the 'Wars of the Roses' and lost their heads as a consequence. Farleigh was confiscated and given to George, Duke of Clarence and brother of Edward IV, who later drowned in a butt of malmsey wine. His daughter, the Countess of Salisbury, was accused of treason in 1541. She refused to lay her head on the block on grounds of innocence and the executioner was obliged to follow her round the scaffold, chopping at her head until it fell from her shoulders.
Farleigh House remained a modest one until Lt. Colonel John Houlton, a devotee of the Gothic Revival, succeeded to the estate in 1806. He enlarged and altered the house using the fashionable medieval style and spent £40,000 - perhaps a million pounds in today's values - on embellishments including hot houses, conservatories, stabling and six lodges. These included the Castle Lodge, now Bath Lodge Castle, built between 1806 and 1813.
